The ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases are important mediators of cell growth, differentiation and survival. The receptor family includes four distinct members including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR or ErbB1), HER2 (ErbB2 or p185neu), HER3 (ErbB3) and HER4 or tyro2).
EGFR, encoded by the erbB1 gene, has been causally implicated in human malignancy. In particular, increased expression of EGFR has been observed in breast, bladder, lung, head, neck and stomach cancer as well as glioblastomas. Increased EGFR receptor expression is often associated with increased production of the EGFR ligand, transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-α), by the same tumor cells resulting in receptor activation by an autocrine stimulatory pathway. Baselga and Mendelsohn Pharmac. Ther. 64:127–154 (1994). Monoclonal antibodies directed against the EGFR or its ligands, TGF-α and EGF, have evaluated as therapeutic agents in the treatment of such malignancies. See, e.g., Baselga and Mendelsohn, supra; Masui et al. Cancer Research 44:1002–1007 (1984); and Wu et al. J. Clin. Invest. 95:1897–1905 (1995).
The second member of the ErbB family, p185neu, was originally identified as the product of the transforming gene form neuroblastomas of chemically treated rats. The activated form of the neu proto-oncogene results from a point mutation (valine to glutamic acid) in the transmembrane region of the encoded protein. Amplification of the human homolog of neu is observed in breast and ovarian cancers and correlates with a poor prognosis (Slamon et al., Science, 235:177–82 (1997); Slamon et al., Science, 244:707–712 (1989); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,603). To date, no point mutation analogous to that in the neu proto-oncogene has been reported for human tumors. Overexpression of ErbB2 (frequently but not uniformly due to gene amplification) has also been observed in other carcinomas including carcinomas of the stomach, endometrium, salivary gland, lung, kidney, colon, thyroid, pancreas and bladder. See, among others, King et al., Science, 229:974 (1985); Yokota et al., Lancet, 1:765–767 (1986); Fukushige et al., Mol. Cell Biol., 6:955–58 (1986); Guerin et al., Oncogene Res., 3:21–31 (1988); Cohen et al., Oncogene, 4:81–88 (1989); Yonemura et al., Cancer Res., 51:1034 (1991); Borst et al., Gynecol. Oncol., 38:364 (1990); Weiner et al., Cancer Res., 50:421–25 (1990); Kern et al., Cancer Res., 50:5184 (1990); Park et al., Cancer Res., 49:6605 (1989); Zhau et al., Mol. Carcinog., 3:254–257 (1990); Aasland et al., Br. J. Cancer, 57:358–363 (1988); Williams et al., Pathiobiology, 59:46–52 (1991); and McCann et al., Cancer, 65:88–92 (1990). ErbB2 may be overexpressed in prostate cancer (Gu et al., Cancer Lett., 99:185–189 (1996); Ross et al., Hum. Pathol., 28:827–833 (1997); Ross et al., Cancer, 79:2162–2170 (1997); and Sadasivan et al., J. Urol., 150:126–131 (1993)). Antibodies directed against the rat p185neu and human ErbB2 protein products have been described. Drebin and his colleagues have raised antibodies against the rat neu gene product, p185neu. See, for example, Drebin et al., Cell, 41:695–706 (1985); Myers et al., Meth. Enzym., 198:277–290 (1991); and WO 94/22478. Drebin et al., Oncogene, 2:273–277 (1988) report that mixtures of antibodies reactive with two distinct regions of p185neu result in synergistic anti-tumor effects on neu-transformed NIH-3T3 cells implanted into nude mice. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,824,311, issued Oct. 20, 1988.
Hudziak et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 9(3):1165–1172 (1989) describe the generation of a panel of anti-ErbB2 antibodies which were characterized using the human breast tumor cell line SKBR3. Relative cell proliferation of the SKBR3 cells following exposure to the antibodies was determined by crystal violet staining of the monolyers after 72 hours. Using this assay, maximum inhibition was obtained with the antibody called 4D5 which inhibited cellular proliferation by 56%. Other antibodies in the panel reduced cellular proliferation to a lesser extent in this assay. The antibody 4D5 was further found to sensitize ErbB2-overexpressing breast tumor cell lines to the cytotoxic effects of TNF-α. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,677,171 issued Oct. 14, 1997. The anti-ErbB2 antibodies discussed in Hudziak et al. are further characterized in Fendly et al. Cancer Research 50:1550–1558 (1990); Kotts et al. In Vitro 26(3):59A (1990); Sarup et al. Growth Regulation 1:72–82 (1991); Shepard et al. J. Clin. Immunol. 11(3):117–127 (1991); Kumar et al. Mol. Cell. Biol. 11(2):979–986 (1991); Lewis et al. Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 37:255–263 (1993); Pietras et al. Oncogene 9:1829–1838 (1994); Vitetta et al. Cancer Research 54:5301–5309 (1994); Sliwkowski et al. J. Biol. Chem. 269(20):14661–14665 (1994); Scott et al. J. Biol. Chem. 266:14300–5 (1991); D'souza et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. 91:7202–7206 (1994); Lewis et al. Cancer Research 56:1457–1465 (1996); and Schaefer et al. Oncogene 15:1385–1394 (1997).
A recombinant humanized version of the murine anti-ErbB2 antibody 4D5 (huMAb4D5-8, rhuMAb HER2 or HERCEPTIN®; U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,337) is clinically active in patients with ErbB2-overexpressing metastatic breast cancers that have received extensive prior anti-cancer therapy (Baselga et al., J. Clin. Oncol. 14:737–744 (1996)). HERCEPTIN® received marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration Sep. 25, 1998 for the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer whose tumors overexpress the ErbB2 protein.
Other anti-ErbB2 antibodies with various properties have been described in Tagliabue et al. Int. J. Cancer 47:933–937 (1991); McKenzie et al. Oncogene 4:543–548 (1989); Maier et al. Cancer Res. 51:5361–5369 (1991); Bacus et al. Molecular Carcinogenesis 3:350–362 (1990); Stancovski et al. PNAS (USA) 88:8691–8695 (1991); Bacus et al. Cancer Research 52:2580–2589 (1992); Xu et al. Int. J. Cancer 53:401–408 (1993); WO 94/00136; Kasprzyk et al. Cancer Research 52:2771–2776 (1992); Hancock et al. Cancer Res. 51:4575–4580 (1991); Shawver et al. Cancer Res. 54:1367–1373 (1994); Arteaga et al. Cancer Res. 54:3758–3765 (1994); Harwerth et al. J. Biol. Chem. 267:15160–15167 (1992); U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,186; and Klapper et al. Oncogene 14:2099–2109 (1997).
Homology screening has resulted in the identification of two other ErbB receptor family members; ErbB3 (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,183,884 and 5,480,968 as well as Kraus et al. PNAS (USA) 86:9193–9197 (1989)) and ErbB4 (EP Pat Appln No 599,274; Plowman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 90:1746–1750 (1993); and Plowman et al., Nature, 366:473–475 (1993)). Both of these receptors display increased expression on at least some breast cancer cells lines.
The ErbB receptors are generally found in various combinations in cells and heterodimerization is thought to increase the diversity of cellular responses to a variety of ErbB ligands (Earp et al. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 35:115–132 (1995)). EGFR is bound by six different ligands; epidermal growth factor (EGF), transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-α), amphiregulin, heparin binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF), betacellulin and epiregulin (Groenen et al. Growth Factors 11:235–257 (1994)). A family of heregulin proteins resulting from alternative splicing of a single gene are ligands for ErbB3 and ErbB4. The heregulin family includes alpha, beta and gamma heregulins (Holmes et al., Science, 256:1205–1210 (1992); U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,869; and Schaefer et al. Oncogene 15:1385–1394 (1997)); neu differentiation factors (NDFs), glial growth factors (GGFs); acetylcholine receptor inducing activity (ARIA); and sensory and motor neuron derived factor (SMDF). For a review, see Groenen et al. Growth Factors 11:235–257 (1994); Lemke, G. Molec. & Cell Neurosci. 7:247–262 (1996) and Lee et al. Pharm. Rev. 47:51–85 (1995). Recently three additional ErbB ligands were identified; neuregulin-2 (NRG-2) which is reported to bind either ErbB3 or ErbB4 (Chang et al. Nature 387 509–512 (1997); and Carraway et al Nature 387:512–516 (1997)); neuregulin-3 which binds ErbB4 (Zhang et al. PNAS (USA) 94(18):9562–7 (1997)); and neuregulin-4 which binds ErbB4 (Harari et al. Oncogene 18:2681–2689 (1999)) HB-EGF, betacellulin and epiregulin also bind to ErbB4.
While EGF and TGFα do not bind ErbB2, EGF stimulates EGFR and ErbB2 to form a heterodimer, which activates EGFR and results in transphosphorylation of ErbB2 in the heterodimer. Dimerization and/or transphosphorylation appears to activate the ErbB2 tyrosine kinase. See Earp et al., supra. Likewise, when ErbB3 is co-expressed with ErbB2, an active signaling complex is formed and antibodies directed against ErbB2 are capable of disrupting this complex (Sliwkowski et al., J. Biol. Chem., 269(20):14661–14665 (1994)). Additionally, the affinity of ErbB3 for heregulin (HRG) is increased to a higher affinity state when co-expressed with ErbB2. See also, Levi et al., Journal of Neuroscience 15:1329–1340 (1995); Morrissey et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:1431–1435 (1995); and Lewis et al., Cancer Res., 56:1457–1465 (1996) with respect to the ErbB2-ErbB3 protein complex. ErbB4, like ErbB3, forms an active signaling complex with ErbB2 (Carraway and Cantley, Cell 78:5–8 (1994)).